Bubble, without toil or trouble.

January 5, 2023 9:19 PM

All The Ways To Make Bubble Tea
posted by storybored (16 comments total)

Oulipotable
posted by clew at 11:02 PM on January 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Ooh I didn't realise I would be making my own virtual drink! Yum.
posted by freethefeet at 2:04 AM on January 6, 2023

OH MY GOD i think i would shatter if given so much choice in a real world situation; if there were people behind me in a queue you'd have to scrape me off the ceiling. Pretty sure my heart rate went up 20 just looking at the web page.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:37 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

Trying to reproduce the hot black sesame tea with boba I used to get at Saint's Alp back in the day and failing.
posted by phooky at 6:24 AM on January 6, 2023

We have a small local chain called Yaaas Tea (that might not be the right number of As) that only takes orders through their app, presumably to avoid yokels like me standing slack-jawed at the counter.

I briefly lived with the owner of the bubble tea cafe in Simmons Hall at MIT in the early 2000s, but their menu was nowhere near this complicated. It was a few flavors of milk tea and boba or no boba. I remember it being somewhat of a struggle to source and cook all the tapioca pearls they needed, at the time. I suspect these things are much easier to come by these days.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:59 AM on January 6, 2023

Ha, the number of smoothie options is far too low for your average bubble tea place around me. I couldn't make either of my kids' standard drink, though I could make mine because I am old and boring. They also didn't have nearly enough pearls to choose from, like for example the popping pearls.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:09 AM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

The sheer number of options is what makes bubble tea places rule!

This was also a surprisingly cool website. I wish pizza ordering websites were like this, and boba tea too I guess, but I don't generally order that online.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:11 AM on January 6, 2023

This is one of those foods that I both cannot make and also don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I've tried the dry in-a-jar boba, and many brands of frozen packaged tea. . . and they're all really disappointing. I don't understand why. I'm not doing anything fancy; I'm literally trying to make milk tea with boba. The milk tea works, but the boba never has quite the right texture. I've largely given up, and just buy it from shops now.
posted by eotvos at 8:26 AM on January 6, 2023

As a tea nerd hoping to find recipes for the "base drinks" I came away disappointed.

I am skeptical that there could be such a thing as a milk tea based on pǔ'ěr tea.

I am delighted to learn of the existence of osmanthus-flavored agar balls.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:46 AM on January 6, 2023

This post is yet another example of what I like about Metafilter. I didn’t know I was looking for it until some fellow mefite posted it.
posted by interogative mood at 8:53 AM on January 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

We finally nailed the honey jasmine tea that my wife loves - turns out it requires a very particular honey, fortunately one we can get from the orchard down the street. (She'd long since found the right jasmine tea, it was the bubble-tea-shop sweetness she couldn't quite get right.)
posted by restless_nomad at 1:02 PM on January 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

For folks looking to make milk tea at home that is as or almost as good as the best shops, buy Gino dry packaged milk tea, that's the only one I've found so far that matches the flavor profile what you are looking for. (I am looking at you, Trader Joe's frozen milk tea concentrate!! That is straight up false advertising.) (Example link of Gino here, but they have multiple flavors.)

Also, insanely jealous that I didn't think to make this first, but also am so happy this exists, thanks storybored!
posted by yueliang at 1:54 AM on January 7, 2023 [3 favorites]

restless_nomad, what kind of honey and tea and do you have a link please?
posted by VyanSelei at 6:05 AM on January 7, 2023

My wife says it's meng ding mao feng and we used apple blossom honey - the specific one we used is not available online (it's the UMass research orchard), but you want a honey that's light and sweet and a little sharp. I suspect that actual bubble tea places just use a basic cheap sweetener like corn syrup and a touch of either lemon juice or just citric acid, but we haven't attempted that yet.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:19 AM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]

After a morale lunch at work, my coworkers and I went to a bubble tea place next door.

None of them ever have bubble tea, and were unfamiliar with just how many options one could get with them! Nor were they familiar with the huge touch screen menus that have cropped up in bubble tea places.

Since I get bubble tea all the time, I helped put in everyone's order. My boss got bubble tea for the very first time at the gathering, and to quote: "Now I never have to have that again. I tried it, and wow. Not for me." Others enjoyed it, but I don't think I would call them fans of the drink.

For me, once I learned what grass jelly was and tried it for the first time? My bubble tea game has been ELEVATED. It is my favorite topping now, by far. I've also switched to soy milk, as I'm not sure what's in the non dairy creamer that's being used in Bubble Tea places.
posted by spinifex23 at 7:44 PM on January 7, 2023 [1 favorite]

I am curious about a similar breakdown but for nutrition. I'd love to learn that the boba are a healthy and low-calorie snack??? Same with taro - if a taro is basically a super-sugary sludge I will be so sad
posted by rebent at 5:08 PM on January 8, 2023